The Taunt
by Cakemixo
Summary: House spends the night on a mystery after the clues and Cuddy taunt him.


The words had not moved.

And yet House stared at them intently, as though, when least expected they would tip their hand and reveal something- anything, which would solve this case.

The sun and clock rotated on their timetables into dusk. His team left for the night, but the words still have not moved. Yet, from his vantage of them on the white dry erase board, they taunted.

_"Tremors," "Diarrhea", "Muscle Weakness," "Depressed Reflexes,"_ it said in his own scrawl.

He found no solace in his records, and had stopped the music hours before, trading it for a bottle of whisky and a shot glass. There was no way Parkinson's would progress as fast as it did in this patient. Taub had no reason to leak that information to Cuddy. Thanks to those two, the patient was going home tomorrow morning, less than twenty-fours hours after she was admitted. He also considered the strange behavior the patient's husband showed today. Something was very wrong with the whole picture.

He turned back to his computer. The patient, Marcy he recalled vaguely from his memory, had attended her granddaughter's birthday party four months back and the family recorded it- and her. He almost memorized the words they spoke and the smiling faces from the DVD they gave him. Marcy moved gracefully and with confidence as she handed gifts to the bouncing toddler. It was a stark contrast to her shaky weak form that was sleeping unrestfully a few floors above him. Parkinson's does not move this fast.

He poured himself two fingers and felt it burn on the way down. Distantly he recalled that everyone had disagreed with him on that last point.

"You are not keeping her here because you are bored." Cuddy warned, "I'm keeping her overnight for observation but unless _you_ can find a legitimate reason to keep her here, she leaves in 16 hours."

"She's fatigued, weak, and her reflexes are almost non-existent." House piped up. "That _is_ a legitimate reason."

"That is classic Parkinson's symptoms. You are not going to screw with this woman's misery by giving her tests after test reconfirming that."

"Parkinson's doesn't go from 0 to 60 in just a few months. It should have taken her years to get to this point."

"Then she has atypical progression." Her face softened, "House, there's no mystery here. There's nothing more to diagnose. You can't wave a magic wand and cure her."

To that House noted the time and simply left for his office.

Now he longed some food, and a shower. His leg protested being still for so long. His head was beginning to match it. He closed his eyes for a moment and focused on the thought of a warm shower.

He turned back to the DVD of the birthday party. Where was her husband? Well behind Marcy and that little girl, behind the parents and other children, there was an old man wandering around the kitchen. He was closing a few cabinets. House played that scene again, watching the man who had no interest in the happy moment in the foreground. Something was simply not right; the body language was not matching up. He screen capped a segment of it and magnified the image. Marcy's husband was frozen mid cabinet close. His profile bore no trace of emotion.

House changed focus to what the man was looking at. It was a box on a very high cabinet shelf. There was no reason for it to be there. It was fertilizer salt. The brand name and the tomato picture were clearly visible on it.

Confused, he picked up the bottle again and poured himself three fingers. _"Pick yer poison"_ he thought absently. Staring into his glass, the words echoed again into his conscious.

Magnesium. It was magnesium poisoning. Her husband was trying to kill her. Fertilizers for tomatoes contain a high concentration of magnesium salt. It could be put in anything. It explained everything. Why he took no interest in her being taken to the hospital by her daughter, why she developed symptoms over months, not years. And he had to do something fast. The next symptom would be coma.

He stood and pulled out his phone. He waited impatiently before Foreman answered on the other end. "Foreman."

"Dr. Fourteen," House announced, "take you and your lesbian half and get back in here."

"House?" asked Foreman. The sleep in his voice was gone. "What are you talking about?"

"Marcy's being poisoned with magnesium by her husband. I need you to call and deal with the police."

"Do you mean Maggie?"

"Whatever. When you get here, ready IV furosemide to help flush it out. She'll be fine in a few weeks."

"How did you--?" House hung up mid Foreman's question and readied his cane to leave. Magic wand indeed, he thought. He looked back at the words on the board. They had not moved, but were open, and obvious. He glanced up at the clock—11:38pm. Cuddy would have long gone to bed by now. Not a problem. He would use another wand of his own and tap on her window.


End file.
